quarta-feira, 30 de março de 2011

PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Michigan State University have built a prototype, based on the research first released in 2009, of the Wave Disk Generator -- an engine that does not have pistons, crankshafts or valves.

Microwaves utilized to convert used motor oil into fuel

By Ben Coxworth

It has been estimated that over 8 billion US gallons (30.3 billion liters) of used motor oil are produced every year by the world's cars and trucks. While some of that is re-refined into new oil or burned in furnaces for heat, neither of those processes are entirely environmentally-innocuous. In other cases, it is simply discarded. Today, however, researchers from the University of Cambridge announced the development of a process that uses microwaves to convert waste oil into vehicle fuel.

Scientists have already been using a process known as pyrolysis for recycling oil. It involves heating the oil to a high temperature in the absence of oxygen, and causes the oil to break down into a mixture of gases, liquids, and solids. While the gases and liquids can be converted to fuel, the Cambridge scientists state that traditional pyrolysis doesn't heat the oil very evenly, making the fuel conversion process difficult and impractical.

Wysips technology can turn any surface into a PV power plant

By Paul Ridden

Mobile phones sporting photovoltaic panels are nothing new but thanks to some lens wizardry, a French company recently showed off a prototype phone where the touchscreen display itself housed the solar-soaking cells. Similar to the lenticular optics which sends slightly different images to each eye for glasses-free 3D viewing, Wysips technology allows light to pass through a semi-cylindrical lens onto thin strips of photovoltaic cells below, while also allowing the surface underneath to show through. The developers say that many surfaces could potentially become self-sufficient power producers.

Superconductors.ORG herein reports the observation of superconductivity near 20 C. In eight magnetization tests a small amount of the compound (Tl5Pb2)Ba2MgCu10O17+ consistently produced sharp diamagnetic transitions (the Meissner effect) near 20 Celsius (see above graphic), and resistive transitions that appeared near 18.5C (see below right). These temperatures are believed accurate +/- 2 degrees.

How It Works: The Make-All 3-D Printer

The Objet Connex churns out complex objects by spraying eight million plastic droplets a second

Since the first 3-D printer was invented by Charles Hull in 1984, machines have seen vast improvements in speed and accuracy. Today’s best 3-D printers operate much like a standard inkjet, spraying millions of droplets of polymer to build an object layer by layer. But there’s a hitch: Most 3-D printers use only use a single material at once, thus each product they produce can be just one color or consistency.
The Objet Connex can print two materials at a time, and even mix composites. In doing so, it can craft items with varied flex, shade and feel. The Connex has helped hospitals fabricate see-through medical models and even allowed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student to construct a working flute complete with moving hinges and rubber gaskets.

terça-feira, 29 de março de 2011

Partially-biodegradable plastic made from waste bone meal

By Ben Coxworth

Creepy as it may sound, for decades one of the key ingredients in cattle feed was meat and bone meal (MBM), made from by-products of – you guessed it – slaughtered cattle. Sheep, farmed deer, elk and bison were also unknowingly eating their own kind. With the onset of the Mad Cow Disease scare in 1997, the U.S. and other countries banned the use of MBM-containing feeds, as it was believed that the disease could spread via the ingestion of infected animals' body parts. That ban has resulted in large quantities of MBM simply ending up in landfills. Now, however, scientists are suggesting that it could be used to make green(ish) plastics.

Fires could be extinguished using beams of electricity

By Ben Coxworth

It's certainly an established fact that electricity can cause fires, but today a group of Harvard scientists presented their research on the use of electricity for fighting fires. In a presentation at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, Dr. Ludovico Cademartiri told of how they used a unique device to shoot beams of electricity at an open flame over one foot tall. Almost immediately, he said, the flame was extinguished. On a larger scale, such a system would minimize the amount of water that needed to be sprayed into burning buildings, both saving water and limiting water damage to those buildings.

StrongArm helps load boats onto cars

By Ben Coxworth

Sea kayaks are quite possibly one of the finest things ever created by mankind, but they can be rather difficult to load onto the top of one's car – this is particularly true for people who are trying to do the job single-handed, or who have a tall vehicle. Australia's Steve Scott identified this problem as an opportunity, and invented the StrongArm Kayak Loader.

The StrongArm consists of a sort of Y-shaped adjustable-height aluminum bar that pivots on a steel base, which attaches to a vehicle's tow ball. The bar is pulled back to rest at a 45-degree angle from the back of the vehicle, and which point the user places the hull of their kayak (or canoe) on the bar's upper surface. As they proceed to push forward on the back of their kayak, the spring-loaded bar swings forward and upwards, levering the boat up to the roof of the car. Mechanical stops keep the bar from hitting the back of the vehicle.

When unloading the kayak, users pretty much just perform the process in reverse.

segunda-feira, 28 de março de 2011

Spaceships powered primarily by water could open up the solar system to exploration, making flights to Mars and other far-flung locales far cheaper, a recent study has found.
A journey to Mars and back in a water-fueled vehicle could cost as little as one space shuttle launch costs today, researchers said. And the idea is to keep these "space coaches" in orbit between trips, so their relative value would grow over time, as the vehicles reduce the need for expensive one-off missions that launch from Earth.
The water-powered space coach is just a concept at the moment, but it could become a reality soon enough, researchers said.

Building a robot, it's probably safe to assume, is a daunting project. It would doubtless be considerably easier if designers didn't have to build everything from scratch, but could instead use pre-built modules. That's where the iMobot comes into play. Designed by University of California, Davis alumnus Graham Ryland and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering Harry Cheng, the modular iMobot is a small robot in its own right, but could also be used as part of a larger robotic system.

Silicon may underpin the computers that surround us, but the rigid inflexibility of the semiconductor means it cannot reach everywhere. The first computer processor and memory chips made out of plastic semiconductors suggest that, someday, nowhere will be out of bounds for computer power.

Researchers in Europe used 4,000 plastic, or organic, transistors to create the plastic microprocessor, which measures roughly two centimeters square and is built on top of flexible plastic foil. "Compared to using silicon, this has the advantage of lower price and that it can be flexible," says Jan Genoe at the IMEC nanotechnology center in Leuven, Belgium. Genoe and IMEC colleagues worked with researchers at the TNO research organization and display company Polymer Vision, both in the Netherlands.

A collection of revered mathematical works will soon be put to auction in New York, including significant pieces of the Liber Abaci or Book of Calculation by Fibonacci. Esteemed as one of the most brilliant mathematicians in Western history, Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (Fibonacci) translated Arabic numerals, whilst explaining the superiority of these numerals and the importance of zero. Above all it was Fibonacci's work that has helped modern day mathematicians find breakthroughs in mathematical equations, whilst also defining sequences used for computer programming and the financial markets.
Fibonacci is of course well known for bringing the Fibonacci code to the West (first understood by Indian mathematicians in the 6th century). Each number in the code simply represents the sum of the previous two numbers, starting with 0 and 1 (eg. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987 ... ).

quarta-feira, 23 de março de 2011

New battery technology may allow for complete recharging within minutes

By Ben Coxworth

Of all the criticisms of electric vehicles, probably the most commonly-heard is that their batteries take too long to recharge – after all, limited range wouldn't be such a big deal if the cars could be juiced up while out and about, in just a few minutes. Well, while no one is promising anything, new batteries developed at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign do indeed look like they might be a step very much in the right direction. They are said to offer all the advantages of capacitors and batteries, in one unit.
"This system that we have gives you capacitor-like power with battery-like energy," said U Illinois' Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering. "Most capacitors store very little energy. They can release it very fast, but they can't hold much. Most batteries store a reasonably large amount of energy, but they can't provide or receive energy rapidly. This does both."

Of the various cycling goodies that were on display last week at the 2011 International Taipei Bicycle Show, one that stood out for its ingenuity was the Amxma Simple One folding bike. Made by Taiwan's Long Antelope Enterprise Company, the Simple One is for the most part just like any other folding bicycle – what makes it special is the fact that when it's folded up, it can be wheeled into your local grocery store and used as a shopping cart.

There are occasions when mobile computing needs in the field simply can't be met by notebook or tablet

solutions. The kind of high performance processing needed for applications like geospatial imagery analysis, UAV ground control, or HD digital video processing is often given over to rack-mounted servers, but NextComputing has another option. Sporting the latest off-the-shelf components within a rugged dual-design chassis, the Vigor EX compact, mobile, all-in-one workstation solutions are built to withstand more than the odd bump and designed to operate in harsh environments.

This is one home security alarm you won't want to trigger by mistake! Burglar Blaster mounts on a wall inside the home, and once armed, uses an infrared beam to detect when an intruder has entered the house. It then emits a cloud of pepper spray, that will severely inconvenience anyone within 2,000 square feet (186 square meters).
The Burglar Blaster runs for up to four years on a set of eight C cell batteries, so it requires no electrical skills to install. Its 4-ounce (118-ml) pepper spray canister has a shelf life of three years, and can be replaced without tools.

Michigan researchers have built a prototype of a new auto motor that does away with pistons, crankshafts and valves, replacing the old internal combustion engine with a disc-shaped shock wave generator. It could slash the weight of hybrid cars and reduce auto emissions by 90 percent.
The generator is about the size of a saucepot, and would replace the 1,000-pound power train in most cars — no transmission, cooling system, emissions regulation or fluids needed. Norbert Müller and colleagues at Michigan State University showed off the new motor prototype at a meeting with the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.

By Phil McKenna
The U.S. Armed Forces are heavily burdened by the financial and tactical costs of transporting fuel to the battlefield. This July, in an effort to address the problem, the United States Marine Corps will deploy a pair of diesel generators coupled with powerful batteries to frontline troops in Afghanistan. The hybrid power systems should cut by 50 to 70 percent the amount of fuel needed to generate electricity, according to the manufacturer, Earl Energy of Portsmouth, Virginia.
The generators that U.S. military camps currently use operate inefficiently because they need to handle ocassional peaks in demand. "You may have a 10-kilowatt generator that at any time is only producing 1.5 kilowatts of power to satisfy its load," says Doug Moorehead, president of Earl Energy. "So you are wasting 8.5 kilowatts of power that you aren't storing for later use," he says.

Replacing some of the nuts and bolts in robots’ bodies with stretchy artificial muscles would allow them to be more flexible and lifelike than ever. Researchers at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute in New Zealand have succeeded in using such soft muscles in a motor that creates continuous rotational force. The motor uses only a few parts beside the muscle and needs no gears, cogs or bearings.

domingo, 20 de março de 2011

What happens if you don’t have a 3d printer of your own, yet you find yourself suffering from a serious case of AME*?*nb – Additive Manufacturing Envy. It’s here, and it’s real.

One enterprising student from Nagoya City University in Japan has taken matters into his own hands by simulating 3d printing.

Beginning with a 3d paper structure, he then pours layers of diluted epoxy to gradually build up a consistent solid coating. Because of the liquid’s viscosity, the resulting surface is smooth and does not need any finishing.

Chemists at the University of California, Riverside, are developing a future display technology using nanoscale-sized iron oxide rods that shine when exposed to an external magnetic field. Though in its early stages, the research could pave the way for producing magnetically responsive, ultra high-res displays with significantly reduced dimensions and power demands.

The researchers have shown in the past that by using a simple magnet, the color of iron oxide particles suspended in water can be manipulated in response to the strength and orientation of a magnetic field.

The latest development is the application of silica to the iron oxide particles to form chains of light emitting particles that refract the visible light into brilliant colors when magnetically charged.

terça-feira, 15 de março de 2011

Increasingly, so-called 3-D printers are being used to make items out of plastic, metal, glass, ceramic, even sugar and mashed potatoes. They do so by laying down layers of material much like ordinary printers and then fusing this material together with lasers, electron beams or other means.

Until now, making wings for machines that can effectively mimic the flight of insects and birds has proven a delicate and time-consuming process taking days or longer to complete.

"Production of an untethered, flapping-hovering machine itself is very challenging, and only a few have been made successfully to date," said researcher Hod Lipson, a roboticist at Cornell University.

Now, using 3-D printers, Lipson and his colleagues have shown they can reduce the time it takes to design flapping wings for mechanical insects to roughly an hour.

sexta-feira, 11 de março de 2011

Like a Swiss Army Knife you can ride: The Voltitude folding electric bike

By Paul Ridden

15:11 March 10, 2011

Last January, we said that the Robrady-designed db0 was one of the best folding electric bikes we'd seen. The Swiss entry into the market has turned its back on this traditional bicycle-with-motor design in favor of a folding pedal-electric assist scooter. Users are said to be able to fold or unfold the Voltitude bike in about one second, and with one hand, thanks to its unique EasyFold system. Swiss and EU legislation limits the electric assist to 15.5 mph (25 kph), although some frantic footwork could see it achieve faster speeds if required, and the onboard battery is good for between 12 and 25 miles (20 to 40 km) between charges.

Gameduino connects your Arduino to a VGA monitor and speakers, so anyone who can write an Arduino sketch can create video games. It's packed full of 8-bit game goodness: hundreds of sprites, smooth scrolling, multi-channel stereo sound.

Gameduino is designed, tested, documented and the prototype is built. The videos were all taken from the real hardware - all the demos are on the Gameduino project page. What needs to happen next is a manufacturing run. Because the board uses a fairly fancy chip, a short production run is the only way to keep the cost reasonable. Your pledge gets you a Gameduino from this first run.

With a horde of Gameduinos in kitchens, garages and classrooms, the resulting old-school 2D mayhem should be considerable.

Gameduino is open-source hardware (BSD license) and all its code is GPL licensed.